D&D 5E Would a repeat of the large errata from the previous edition put you off of Next?

[D'karr]

To me, it depends on what you define as "errata." The massive amount of rule changes and adjustments they made in both 3.5 and 4E do not qualify as "errata" to me;

On this point I whole-heartedly disagree. When a rule is not working specifically as intended, because it is ripe for "rules lawyering" abuse, or because it needs clarification so that the clear intent is obvious - then it should be fixed. Errata should be issued for it. It should not be a "stealth" change to the rule. If anything the consumer is able to decide if the change is needed/wanted for them, or if they don't care and simply continue to use the "broken" rule. Errata also serves to highlight for the DM things that might be problematic with the ruleset, and he can choose to make an adjustment of his own that is not covered by the changed rule or is a wide departure from the rule.

Fixing misspellings, grammatical edits, etc., I view as simply corrections. Nobody is going to care if the spell is called Mordenkainen's Faithful Hind, or Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound. Those are not needed corrections, and don't really impact gameplay. But if the spell lasts significantly longer than expected/intended, or does much more damage than expected/intended, or is missing vital information to work as intended then it does impact gameplay, and errata is a way of "fixing" that.

Paizo seems to have found a decent balance for this; every once in a while something will pop up that significantly changes an ability, but not very often, and they do a good job of incorporating any errata they do make into the printed product instead of relying just on a separate document that has to be cross referenced continually.

This is IMO the worst of all approaches, if an electronic download is not also provided. Also known colloquially as "stealth" errata - WotC did this with some of the rules. See "stealth" in PHB2, magic item availability, and rewriting the classes as Essentials classes for blatant examples of this. But they did publish the changes in electronics errata documents so it was not really a stealth errata.

Electronically published "free" errata allows for multiple "corrected" printings of a book to be published without leaving anybody behind. If the consumer doesn't have the "corrected" edition they can see what the changes were, and they have the option of "fixing" the stuff themselves if they want.

I would love it if WotC could find that same kind of balance rather than constantly tinkering with stuff before they know what changes, if any, actually need to be made; of course, better playtesting and actually going over what they are putting out before releasing it to the public instead of simply publishing something for the sake of publishing it would help considerably in that department.

Once again agendas show - Paizo can do no wrong, but WotC sucks. That line of reasoning is getting really tiresome. I agree that playtesting and better editing/proof reading can possibly reduce this but let's see how well that worked for Paizo once we look at the actual errata. The Pathfinder game was built entirely on an engine that WotC designed and published, the game (3.x) had been in publication and play for many years. On top of that Pathfinder had a lengthy open playtest. Using your proposed reasoning that game (Pathfinder) should have no errata, but the numbers don't support that. Pathfinder has had 6 printings to date. There are hundreds of errata "changes", just to the core book, in their published errata document between the 1st and 6th printing. Some of them are significant changes, and some of them not. The errata document between the 5th and 6th printing alone has over 20 "corrections". One of them to the "grapple" rules. Was grapple something that didn't get playtested enough? It is one of the most derided rules in 3.x, but 6 printings later Paizo is still "correcting" it.

I hope that you are not proposing that the consumer needs to spend more money to purchase another product, that includes in it some of the "corrections" that the developers have decided upon for the game.

Don't get me wrong I appreciate that Paizo does their best to put these "corrections" in subsequent printings of the books, but I also appreciate that they went ahead and published the corrections for free for those that don't want to continually buy new corrected versions of the same ruleset. However what I appreciate most is that they recognize that things that need fixing should be fixed, and not left as is. "better playtesting and actually going over what they are putting out before releasing it to the public" - hasn't worked that well for Paizo if we look at the facts. It is obviously not the panacea some are claiming it to be. So let's be honest and stop the WotC bashing and Paizo praising when it is obvious both of them are pretty much putting out books that have lots of errors that need fixing.

In a game as rules-heavy as D&D, if the clarifying language is going to be such an extensive "rewrite" then sometimes the best way is to actually rewrite the rules to make them clear. WotC did this about 3 times with Polymorph in 3.x (a rule that is ripe for abuse). There might have been others they did the same with but I don't recall them all. As a consumer I want them to provide these "fixes" to me, and I want them free of charge.

 

[sunshadow21]

I never said that the major rules changes should be hidden changes or that they shouldn't occur, just that they should not be called errata along with the proper errata. Call them what they are, put them into a separate document accordingly, and quit abusing the term errata. Most of the time it's not what WotC does that bothers me, it's how they do it. I don't doubt that 4E is better for the fixes they have made; I just feel that most of them should never have been necessary in the first place and that the few that could not have been foreseen were poorly handled in how they were released and distributed, which has always been WotC's biggest weakness with this brand overall.

I don't necessarily have anything against WotC per se, but they really, really, really need to try to stop running D&D as if it follows the same concerns, rules, and processes as Magic when it comes to development and market. The strategy of release, modify later, and have people not care works well enough for Magic, where it is a core part of the brand, but doesn't work so well for D&D, either in the extreme differences between editions or in the so called errata they release within each edition. It limits their ability to promote any one version of D&D as "the" version that can carry the brand and makes it harder to sustain interest as it becomes harder for folks to keep up with all the changes and drastically different editions accumulate. Paizo is far from perfect, but of the companies currently out there, strikes the best balance of long term errata support while maintaining overall rules stability; their business and support model is by far more sustainable in the RPG market than anything WotC has done, and is worth looking to see how WotC could better support future D&D editions on the business side so that the product could truly stand on it's own rather than constantly being in Magic's shadow. Limiting errata to true errata, labeling other changes accordingly, not treating them as just a bit more errata, and limiting the need for those larger changes before they ever go public is one big, key step they could make in that direction; they will never eliminate them entirely, as even Paizo has shown that such changes can and do need to occur even with high quality control, but they can reduce them so that when they do occur, people will actually notice them and be able to keep track of them all without needing a document the size that either 3.5 or 4E had. The fact that you can list off most, if not all, of Paizo's changes that quickly is telling.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Once again agendas show - Paizo can do no wrong, but WotC sucks.

I sometimes wonder if Paizo and WotC put out the same exact book word for word, and WotC charged 24.99 and Paizo charges 29.99 how many people would still claim WotC version was a money grab and Piazo did it better...

I agree that playtesting and better editing/proof reading can possibly reduce this but let's see how well that worked for Paizo once we look at the actual errata.

I know of no game ever even ones that had thousands of hours of playtest and editors of professional level who ever proved that to be true...

The Pathfinder game was built entirely on an engine that WotC designed and published, the game (3.x) had been in publication and play for many years. On top of that Pathfinder had a lengthy open playtest. Using your proposed reasoning that game (Pathfinder) should have no errata, but the numbers don't support that. Pathfinder has had 6 printings to date. There are hundreds of errata "changes", just to the core book, in their published errata document between the 1st and 6th printing. Some of them are significant changes, and some of them not. The errata document between the 5th and 6th printing alone has over 20 "corrections". One of them to the "grapple" rules. Was grapple something that didn't get playtested enough? It is one of the most derided rules in 3.x, but 6 printings later Paizo is still "correcting" it.

wait... this is news to me... so Paizo does the same thing as WotC, but doesn't get slamed for it... shocking...

I hope that you are not proposing that the consumer needs to spend more money to purchase another product, that includes in it some of the "corrections" that the developers have decided upon for the game.

That would be a problem for me... I don't plan on ever buying a second PHB for the same edition...

In a game as rules-heavy as D&D, if the clarifying language is going to be such an extensive "rewrite" then sometimes the best way is to actually rewrite the rules to make them clear. WotC did this about 3 times with Polymorph in 3.x (a rule that is ripe for abuse). There might have been others they did the same with but I don't recall them all. As a consumer I want them to provide these "fixes" to me, and I want them free of charge.

Divine challenge is still my go to example... you could play test for 10,000,000 (yes 10 million) hours with thousands of play testers and never run into the problem of the holy knight of valor challenging someone to fight him then running away.... but 2 weeks into publishing that was the 'best use of the power' talked about on the internet because 1 or 2 people found that funny loop hole... then once everyone knew about it, it spread like wild fire...

It was fixed early in the errata cycle, and had to be written 100 times longer to do it, to avoid something 99% of players would never think to do...

 

[ExploderWizard]

Nobody is going to care if the spell is called Mordenkainen's Faithful Hind, or Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound. Those are not needed corrections, and don't really impact gameplay.

When you cast the former spell and get a mule don't come crying to me!

 

[n00bdragon]

I don't necessarily have anything against WotC per se, but they really, really, really need to try to stop running D&D as if it follows the same concerns, rules, and processes as Magic when it comes to development and market. The strategy of release, modify later, and have people not care works well enough for Magic, where it is a core part of the brand, but doesn't work so well for D&D, either in the extreme differences between editions or in the so called errata they release within each edition.

You can't possibly be referring to Magic: the Gathering with this statement. Does WotC produce another product that people refer to as "Magic"?

 

[D'karr]

When you cast the former spell and get a mule don't come crying to me!

I'm glad somebody understood the correct context for that spell.

 

[D'karr]

I never said that the major rules changes should be hidden changes or that they shouldn't occur, just that they should not be called errata along with the proper errata.

If we lived in an ideal world we would not need errata, and I'd have a Ferrari. We don't on any of those. So we make do with the best option for a "not ideal" situation. If for some reason version X for a rule was in the final published document when the correct one should have been version Y that is an error. I don't care what they call it - corrections, errors, erratum, list of erratum, errata or pudding. They should correct it.

Call them what they are, put them into a separate document accordingly, and quit abusing the term errata.

Okay, don't they already put the corrections in a separate document? So your real problem is a semantic one. But Paizo does it correctly and has found some sort of "balance" to this but WotC hasn't? Right

Most of the time it's not what WotC does that bothers me, it's how they do it. I don't doubt that 4E is better for the fixes they have made; I just feel that most of them should never have been necessary in the first place and that the few that could not have been foreseen were poorly handled in how they were released and distributed, which has always been WotC's biggest weakness with this brand overall.

You mean corrections to something that should have been foreseen, like "grapple"? I mean according to you Paizo does this right. They strike some esoteric form of "best balance of long term errata support while maintaining overall rules stability." However WotC misses the boat entirely because they run "D&D as if it follows the same concerns, rules, and processes as Magic when it comes to development and market". Sounds like a lot of "hogwash" to me.

so that when they do occur, people will actually notice them and be able to keep track of them all without needing a document the size that either 3.5 or 4E had. The fact that you can list off most, if not all, of Paizo's changes that quickly is telling.

One of the reasons the errata for 4e looks as if it is so numerous is because of format. They actually reprint the entirety of a power, for example, even if the change is a simple correction to a line. Obviously that takes more space. The collected errata for all documents is obviously much larger than incremental errata, which they also did for a while. If they followed the same format as Paizo their document for the core book would probably be rather similar in size.

 

[Mistwell]

One of the reasons the errata for 4e looks as if it is so numerous is because of format. They actually reprint the entirety of a power, for example, even if the change is a simple correction to a line. Obviously that takes more space. The collected errata for all documents is obviously much larger than incremental errata, which they also did for a while. If they followed the same format as Paizo their document for the core book would probably be rather similar in size.

Yes, that is one reason. And I think in hindsight it was a mistake.

I think part of the original intent of reprinting the entire rule with the correction was for you to be able to physically print it out, cut the new paragraph our with scissors, and literally paste it into your book (which some did at first). But that rapidly proved to be futile, as some "rules correction" ended up turning one paragraph into four or five, as it was really more a rules change rather than minor correction.

They should go back to the 3e type of errata - just tell us the change, don't reprint all that text. Keep the page count of the errata to a minimum. I want to be able to slip all the errata for a book in the back of the hardback book it's for, without damaging the spine of the book. A 25 page book of errata doesn't really allow for that.

 

[n00bdragon]

Yes, that is one reason. And I think in hindsight it was a mistake.

I think part of the original intent of reprinting the entire rule with the correction was for you to be able to physically print it out, cut the new paragraph our with scissors, and literally paste it into your book (which some did at first). But that rapidly proved to be futile, as some "rules correction" ended up turning one paragraph into four or five, as it was really more a rules change rather than minor correction.

They should go back to the 3e type of errata - just tell us the change, don't reprint all that text. Keep the page count of the errata to a minimum. I want to be able to slip all the errata for a book in the back of the hardback book it's for, without damaging the spine of the book. A 25 page book of errata doesn't really allow for that.

This is some mad strawmanning and goalpost moving if I ever saw it. The errata is only no good because you can't print it out and glue it to your book? Really?

 

[frogimus]

I want the physical books to be thoroughly edited and developed. It should be possible to play without ever looking at errata.

This is all I ask. Don't be sloppy because you have a website to use for issuing corrections. A horribly scripted website that I never look at. Sell me a book that is usable.